Five Tracks I Didn't Play At Honcho Campout '25
After an experience like Honcho Campout, so full of potential, it’s almost easier, afterwards, to talk about what didn’t happen than what did. I didn’t let anyone down on my job (I’ve done Artist Liaison for the past three years). I didn’t have any major fuck-ups during my set (I played on Saturday afternoon, my first time). I didn’t have a bad trip (like I did on my birthday the first year). I didn’t take part in the Piss On Pup Voltzy event-turned-competition. I didn’t hook up with anyone. I didn’t say all the things I wanted to say.
“You must be doing it wrong,” many other attendees may be thinking, having tripped and pissed and hooked up and said it all during their own Campout. But hidden under the surface of that reductive list of didn’ts — both moderate professional achievements and apparent missed opportunities — are the many many layers of experience and ambiguity and constructive contradiction that the whole “Honcho queer joy thing” (to quote a friend) elicits, and which it might take a whole year of therapy sessions to tease out (let alone put in a newsletter) before the next one suddenly comes round again. My personal suspicion is, if you leave Campout with an entirely unmitigated sense of fulfilment, it’s actually you who’s doing it wrong.
Having said all that, when it comes to my DJ set, I’ve got no complaints. Well, actually, I have one — and I voiced it at the time when Sam, my friend and Artist Liaison that day, came over to reassure me that Beaujangless, the drag artist performing after me, was on time and waiting in the wings, as if that was a good thing since the drag artists are characteristically late (witness my account of helping Colin Self get ready from last year), and I had to ask him: “But why is she here already? She’s not on for another 50 minutes!” and he replied, crushingly: “Babe, you’ve only got 20 minutes left” — the only complaint I have, as I was saying, is that my two hours were over far too soon. Time really does fly when you’re having that much fun. As I kept telling people both before and then after I played: the set was the easiest thing I had to do all week.
But the fact that time ran out meant there were many tunes I wanted to play but didn’t. And over this past week, reflecting on some of the wider missed opportunities of this year’s Campout, I thought to myself: perhaps we can read those unplayed tracks as symbols, or symptoms, of some of the broader dilemmas of Campout. A world of opportunity that always leaves me feeling wanting. A temporary organisation that shoots for utopia but misses because the wider container (society at large) inevitably impinges on it. A collective effort where some attendees and even artists feel empowered to shed certain aspects of responsibility and care because the staff — and many non-staff — take on extra in their stead.
I originally thought this would be titled ‘Five tracks…’ but when I compared what I played (35 tracks) to my original playlist (a rather ambitious 101 tracks) it became apparent there were many more tunes I wanted to write about. So I drew up a shortlist of 13 tracks and started typing. Before I realised it, I’d written 2000 words on the first one alone. So I have actually kept this newsletter to just five of the tunes I didn’t play at Honcho Campout 2025, and here they are — an incomplete window into the incomplete experience itself.
Matmos – ‘Steam And Sequins For Larry Levan’ [Matador, 2006]
There were quite a few changes at Campout this year, but the biggest of them was undeniably Critters Lounge. Over the years there has been consistent feedback asking for a ‘third space’ to complement the two dance music stages — Hemlock Hole and The Grove. Somewhere to hang out, with live music and performance, drink and food, no dancefloor and pure vibes. This demand aligned with a vision on the part of one of the founders for a kind of wacky cabaret tent with entertainment, cocktails and elegant furniture. The festival’s tenth anniversary this year turned out to be the occasion for bringing this vision to life in form of Critters: a cabaret tent with a horseshoe bar, circular banquet tables and chairs, a raised theatre stage, a green room and a programme encompassing live bands, burlesque, comedy and drag.
It's fair to say this bland description does absolutely no justice to the actual experience of Critters. Over the weeks leading up to the festival I think we were all a bit nervous about whether it would come off. Could the club kids be persuaded to come hear some obscure noise act at 3am? Would the tent be a sumptuous Moulin Rouge-level fantasy, or would it turn out Honcho’s version of Willy’s Chocolate Experience — that is, a massive flop?
I arrived on site a few days before the festival was to open and the cabaret tent was still under construction. It was much larger than I imagined, imposing enough to inspire some awe even in its half-built state. The semicircular bar was already installed, and the structure of the stage and lateral risers for people to sit on, but otherwise it was bare. Outside, nearby in the meadow, another smaller temporary tent had been assembled for the design team to work under. Murals — which would become the walls of the tent — were laid out flat on the grass, featuring expressionist scenes of bodies and nature intertwined. It was only once these had been hung in place a couple of days later that I understood that the images lining the eastern wall of the tent were bathed in the light of the sun, while the images on the western side glowed with twilight. These were the kinds of details that were to make Critters Lounge a resounding success.
Alongside the murals the design team were buzzing around a set of tables absolutely covered in objects that on closer inspection revealed themselves as bugs of all kinds, so many that some had to be suspended on wires or had spilled over onto the ground. Moths, lightning bugs, beetles, a dragonfly, even a praying mantis. Some were small and clearly intended as patterning — for example, around the edge of the stage. Others were monumental, fashioned from wire, cardboard and foam armatures covered in gauze embedded with found objects, and then painted. I remember going to an exhibition of giant insects on a family holiday to Australia when I was 7 years old. The scrapbook I made from that trip is likely still in my parents’ attic. Just seeing these creations instantly transported me back to that childhood memory, while the praying mantis — my spirit animal for various reasons — spoke to my adolescence. The sense of wonder was already palpable and the tent still hadn’t been finished!
If the construction of the Critters Lounge was a discovery for me that would unfold over those first few days on site, its programme was something I already knew intimately. I had spent the preceding couple of months assisting with the advancing for the festival, so I had been emailing, chasing, responding to and generally digitally shepherding the almost 40 individuals who would be performing in the space. On each night — Thursday, Friday, Saturday — there would be a live music block, a cabaret block, an open-mic-style drag block and, on Friday and Saturday, an additional theatre performance.
Alongside the many names I had never heard of before, there were a couple of familiar ones that stood out to me. Philly phenomenon The Moon Baby was one of my artists at my first Campout in 2023, when she did a drag performance at Hemlock Hole that memorably featured a portable treadmill. This time she was back to perform The Moon Baby Show featuring original songs and covers accompanied by Lili St Queer on keyboard, kicking off Saturday evening’s programme in riotous fashion by doing poppers out of a soda can live on stage directly before covering ‘Wuthering Heights’ — a moment that pretty well defines the Critters vibe.
But before all that, in the opening live music block on Thursday evening, were Matmos. Now, I can’t claim to be a Matmos completist, or even a very dedicated Matmos fan. I haven’t listened to their music for years. But when I was a Pitchfork-following teenager I listened regularly to their album A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure, made with sounds from cosmetic surgery, and The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast, a collection of tributes to queer historical figures featuring sounds associated with those same figures, including my favourite, ‘Steam And Sequins For Larry Levan’. This tune, one of the rare ones in their catalogue that best passes as dance music, came up for me again around 7 years ago when I found a white label of it in a record shop in Amsterdam and proceeded to play it on one of those legendary Spaced afterparty boats in Hackney. Since then I hadn’t thought much about Matmos, but when I saw their name on the Critters programme I felt a thrill. After all, they were kind of teenage heroes of mine. And they would be two of my assigned artists this year.
When I went over to Critters again on Thursday afternoon for their soundcheck, the tent was transformed: the stage now featured a fully built-out proscenium topped by a theatrical bust and surrounded by a pattern of the model moths I had seen outside a few days before. From the roof of the tent was suspended a pink web of netting, in which rested the various bug sculptures: the lightning bug just above the stage, its light-up rear waiting to shine as the night drew in; the praying mantis much lower near the entrance, close enough to reach out and touch. The semicircular bar now featured its own kind of proscenium at the back, two caterpillars (of the Very Hungry kind) arcing towards each other in a kind of crittery The Kiss. The banquet tables and chairs hadn’t yet been put out but the full picture was beginning to form.
I met Matmos — Martin, in his early 60s, and Drew, in his mid 40s, both of them looking and acting at least 10 years younger — and helped them carry over their gear from the dry storage shed. It transpired that the tables ordered for them to set up on were the wrong size, so it took a while to decide on the best arrangement, during which time they had already told me the story of how they met: Drew, a 17 year old go-go dancer at a bar called Club Uranus; Martin, an enthusiastic patron. And here they were, 25 years later, unloading modular gear, custom-build echo boxes and what I can only describe as pots and pans from their carry cases. I couldn’t stay for their soundcheck — I had to go and eat dinner before my shift proper began, so when I came back later that evening I had no idea what was in store. Before them was the opening act, Tigered Flesh, who gave us a visceral mix of noise, vocals and physical performance with branches, earth and a keffiyeh, a ritual between grief and outrage to open proceedings. Critters had begun.
The tent wasn’t full yet, but almost. After a short break, during which some background music accompanied the chatter of the still growing crowd. Matmos took to the stage. Drew, sitting sideways facing towards Martin, who stood facing the crowd, began to coax sounds out of the array of boxes in front of him. Martin had an assistant (an abettor?) brandishing a flashlight near him, highlighting his wide-eyed face, the white of his business shirt, and the objects in his hands: to start with, a curious set of not-really-cymbals that seemed to generate noise digitally as he scraped them, gently, against each other. It felt a bit like an orchestra tuning up, so I guess in some way it wasn’t really clear they had begun. The chatter continued. Martin paused, staring out — presumably not really being able to see anything thanks to the spotlight, but knowing full well the effect he wanted to have on the audience — and deadpanned: “You’ll like it better if you listen.” There was a sudden silence as the whole tent took a collective breath, settled in their seats, and then the performance continued.
Thanks to my duties — which involved going to fetch more gear from the storage shed (including a theremin for one of the cabaret acts coming later), going backstage to the green room to check the fridge was refreshed, attempting to source important but until that moment neglected items for the drag and cabaret performers, like drinking straws (essential once you’re in a full face of make-up), scissors (a glaring oversight) and paper towels (weirdly unavailable) — I can’t give you a blow by blow account of the set. Indeed, after that opening moment I only saw snatches. But what I did see was luminous, and, even more affecting, was watching the reaction of the audience.
As Artist Liaison part of my job was to control access to the green room, so I set myself up on a chair next to one of the big speaker stacks next to the stage, facing the crowd and blocking off the side passage to the back. I had a great view of Martin from the side, with Drew more hidden behind at his machines. At one point, as Martin picked up a small bell with a handle and began to ring it, suddenly another bell answered from the back of the tent, and then another. Unknown to many of us these call-and-response bellringer accomplices had been planted in the crowd before the performance started. A thrill of discovery rippled around the tent. At another point, Martin picked up a series of metal mixing bowls of ever increasing size, striking them with a mallet and allowing the resonant sounds to echo through the space, before peremptorily discarding each on the floor with a clang, to much amusement from the audience. At a certain point I suddenly realised that the roof and walls had become a canvas for the play of ever-shifting projections, sent from an unknown source (what turned out to be a projector set up outside in the meadow), adding yet another layer of swirling psychedelia to the spectacle.
I am not a person often moved to tears but I started welling up as Martin softly intoned a text, almost an incantation, I can’t even remember what about, but something both light-hearted and profound at the same time, about the self and the universe, and I looked out at the array of transfixed faces in front of me, absorbed in the performance of this duo of gay oddballs who’ve been walking their own path for 25 years now and show no signs of slowing down. And this whole interaction had somehow been conjured in the middle of the Pennsylvanian woods, at a festival hitherto known for showcasing the best of the US queer dance music scene, but never a live band, let alone these motherfucking legends. This was also Critters.
Well, now I’ve related all of that, it feels kind of beside the point to say that of COURSE I was going to play a Matmos tune during my set on Saturday afternoon, even though I knew they were leaving the site on Saturday morning and would never hear it. ‘Steam And Sequins For Larry Levan’ was the obvious choice, but the few times I’d tried it out recently (for example at Public Records the week before) something about its extremes — the height of camp when it bursts into a Busby Berkeley-esque circus at 1m40s, or the creeping mania that sets in during the final section — had been difficult to harness. So I put an evergreen The Soft Pink Truth (Drew solo) tune, ‘Promofunk’, on my playlist as a backup, and that’s the one I ended up playing instead.
Lauren Flax – ‘It’s Ours’ [Super Rhythm Trax, 2018]
On Saturday I was programmed between ROJO — a Pittsburgh powerhouse who I’d never met but who was, as I understood from his posts on IG, likely to play a mixture of upbeat 90s house and possibly some boogie and disco — and Detroit-by-way-of-NYC contemporary acid house legend Lauren Flax. Now Lauren is someone I’d put in a similar category to Matmos: I’ve long been a fan of her debut record on Super Rhythm Trax, especially the track ‘It’s Ours’, but never really kept up with what she’s been up to since then. But that tune has been such a staple over the years that I felt compelled to play it in my set to show my appreciation, and so I put it in the playlist on autopilot.
But then found myself imagining the moment I’d play it with her actually there, and I caught myself. Hadn’t I done this with other producers before and elicited a less than glowing response? It’s rare for an artist to be proud of their entire back catalogue, especially earlier releases which might betray what they consider an underdeveloped sound. Instead of fond nostalgia, they might be triggered, hearing only the shortcomings or mistakes. I had no idea whether Lauren was proud of ‘It’s Ours’. I even stopped to consider whether the cryptically possessive vocals — “they can’t have it/you can’t have it/she can’t have it/it’s ours” — still resonated with her. In a context like Campout these words could sound defiant, describing this special place we queerdos have created for ourselves and would like to protect from the outside. But they could also come off as selfish, perhaps even violent. Was I overthinking it? Probably. I think it’s a fact about ostensibly freeing spaces that they are built on a lot of overthinking. Freedom is actually very complicated and without careful consideration can end up being frightening. That’s something that would play out soon after I finished my set. But anyway, in the meantime, perhaps Lauren would have loved it if I’d played ‘It’s Ours’, perhaps she wouldn’t. We’ll never know, because I didn’t.
So I’ll mention here what happened just after my set and before Lauren started, since it feels important to record it. Beaujangless was indeed bang on time, so after I’d faded out my final tune (more on that below), Charlene, the curator of the overall drag programme, got on the mic to introduce the performance. Then, with the opening monologue of ‘Proud Mary’ by Tina Turner, Beau took to the stage.
The Hemlock dancefloor this year was framed by a series of colourful theatre-like banners that echoed — consciously or not, I do not know — the Critters proscenium. For the drag show, the DJ booth was periodically augmented by a runway of risers jutting out into the centre of the crowd. From my vantage point in the DJ booth, elated by my performance (you can see me smiling in the above photo), I watched the back of Beaujangless as she lip synced her way through the slowburn of the song’s first half. It's a surreal experience watching the back of a drag queen’s head as she performs: you miss all the vital face action going on up front, yet you still feel the physical impact of each shift in posture, swish of the head and carefully calibrated hand gesture. And, just like during Matmos at Critters, you get to witness the faces of the crowd lifted up towards her and you, enraptured. At the pivotal point of the song, 2m30s in, there was a moment of suspense before it exploded into the joyous second half, Beaujangless suddenly ripping off her jacket and spinning and stomping and silently belting out the refrain, Tina temporarily resurrected, a handful of barely-dressed backing dancers leaping to the stage and gyrating around her as the crowd erupted.
Now from our vantage point all we could see was ass, ass and more ass, with Beau majestic in the centre. The song ended, the crowd erupted once more and then strangely fell silent. Something was happening down the side of the risers, difficult to see from where I was. A person was having an episode, perhaps overcome — as we all were — by the spectacle and energy fizzing around the clearing, but too overcome, too stimulated by whatever, unable to contain themselves. As it became clear that this person needed help, people intervened physically, attempting to calm them down and bring them out of the crowd. The eerie silence continued as people watched this strange procession: six or so people part-carrying part-manhandling the person past us to the back of the booth, attended by members of the Safety team (at this festival, always right there when you needed them), and into a waiting golf cart, which then drove them in the direction of the nearest Wellness tent about 30m away.
How to process such a stark turn of events? You couldn’t deny it was something of a vibe killer and, in other circumstances, in another place, I think it could have set many people off on a bad trip. Alternatively, it could be one of those things that everyone sort of glosses over and tries to forget about as quickly as possible. And although I think there was an element of that latter impulse in what happened next, there was also a stronger element of acknowledgement, care and kindness. Charlene got back on the mic to do what she does best: keep the show on the road in style. She named the situation, expressed our collective desire for that person to be looked after and feel better, gave Beaujangless her flowers for her showstopping (an unfortunate but accurate choice of word) performance and reminded everyone that there was another artist waiting patiently to take the stage. Charlene’s introduction was a gift to Lauren as, without it, to press play on the CDJ in that moment must surely have felt like the biggest non sequitur. As it was, we were all given the opportunity to regain our equilibrium for a moment, consider the implications of what had happened for ourselves and our plans for the rest of the afternoon, and get back on track, all while paying respect to the absolute don now standing behind the decks. And of course Lauren proceeded to utterly smash it.
Liquid Measure feat. Jocelyn Brown - ‘Take Me Up (Dr Scratch’s Stomp Mix)’ [Realtime, 1998]
A few weeks before Campout, I was talking to my friend Gwenan about our b2b set at this year’s Dimensions festival, which was taking place just 10 days after I left Campout. We would be closing one of the main stages at 4am on opening (Thursday) night. In between the two festivals I would be going on a roadtrip through Pennsylvania and New Jersey, playing in New York and Manchester and then seeing my parents in Birmingham for a couple of days before flying out to Croatia. There wasn’t much time for preparation. When me and G b2b we usually play a lot of records, but since most of this tour was spent in the US, I had not brought any with me. It would be a funny puzzle, her playing records and me playing only digital.
We also don’t really like to plan what we’re going to do, but it can be nice to sometimes share a few tunes or moods. This time, G had the nice idea of picking a word as a theme for the set. After I’d agreed to the idea, she tried to make me pick the word. I refused — it was her idea, so she should pick. She sent me a shortlist. I can’t remember what any of the other words on it were, but the first one was “RISE”. Of course that was the one I’d pick: I already had Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom’s ‘Rise’ on the brain because of a parallel project I’ve been working on (more news on that soon); and, separately, a tune on a compilation I’ve recently curated features a very conspicuous vocal saying “rise” (more news on that in the next couple of days). Me and G would also be playing at sunrise and, hopefully, leaving the late night Dimensions crowd on an uplifting note. Well, the way that set in Tisno actually played out is a story for another day. What matters here is the impact that this conversation and choice of word had on my set at Honcho. I’d already pretty much committed to playing the DFA remix of ‘Rise’, probably as my first tune. But I also had a series of other ‘rise’-related tunes that I knew would be unlikely to fit in at Dimensions, but would surely go down well on a joyful afternoon down at Hemlock.
Maurice Fulton’s remix of ‘Take Me Up’ by Liquid Measure feat. Jocelyn Brown, for example, is one of those tunes that sits in my mental box of unforgettable DJ moments that happened years and years ago without ever, yet, being repeated. I first played it at O/B in Lisbon in February 2018 (see my track-by-track recap of that set here) and then at the third Dust Off in Manchester in April that same year (grainy video evidence of the reaction here). Since then I don’t think I’ve played it out a single time, but Hemlock felt like the right place to finally revisit it. This total anthem is about music as a means of healing, ascent and unity, and when Jocelyn hits the high note on the “-kind” in the phrase “there’s nothing like the music/to heal mankind”, Fulton extends the syllable for so long that it is first bewildering, then ridiculous, then ecstatic and, ultimately, liberating — especially the second time round, when he augments it with that gorgeous piano line. I’m pretty sure this track would have brought the rafters down, if Hemlock had rafters. But for whatever reason, I just didn’t get to it in the two hours, maybe because its opening sequence of broken drums were a little too crafty for the funky flow I found myself in, maybe because there were other messages I wanted to convey, maybe both. It’s one of my big ‘could have beens’ from this year.
Two other tracks in that category of “rise” that I thought I might play were Spoonface & Colonel Red’s ‘Move Up’, which I dropped at 1h09m in my RA mix here, and Alex Smoke’s String Mix of Funk D’Void’s ‘Way Up High’, which also sits in that box of unforgettable DJ moments from that one time I played it at Pbar and everyone just vibed the fuck out for a moment. The former tune would have transmitted a rather literal message about uplifting each other. The latter would have been a more personal message to a friend in the crowd, one of many such messages to various people that I sprinkled through the set. But in the end, neither seemed to fit the relatively easy-going atmosphere we collectively established. I think I’d have needed another hour to conjure the right mood, so in the end I reached for neither. I did open my set with ‘Rise’, though (as I wrote on IG here). And I did play ‘Way Up High’ at Dimensions.
Kissing The Pink - ‘Certain Things Are Likely’ [Mercury, 1987]
Speaking of personal messages, I’m always thinking about the weird blurring between the generic sentiment of much of modern music and the uncanny, almost laser-guided way that those sentiments can speak to you at particular moments in your life. My friend Bleimann has written extensively on this in his series of Christmas lectures published through this very newsletter (Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3). While songs about having a good time, getting high at the club or falling in love all speak to our generalised experience quite easily, what we’re talking about here is far more striking in moments of stress, transition, heartbreak. Suddenly a song that for all the world could be about anyone turns out to be about you, right now, “in it”. Disco, of course, is the classic case: “Was That All It Was”, “Love Pains”, “I Gotta Keep Dancin”. Pop, as Bleimann elaborates in his writing, is another. But at this juncture in my life I’m not actually feeling any of those feels. I’m doing pretty well. I’m falling in love with myself and my friends. I’m excited about what’s to come. So in my playlist I had a just had a ream of old favourites to express those feelings, like Bim Marx’s edit of Loleatta Holloway’s ‘Stronger’ (“our love has grown into a flower garden that could never die”) and ex-Fun Fun singer Angela Paris’s ‘Wherever Forever’ (don’t actually ask me what her vocals say, they’re complete Italo nonsense, but the sentiment comes through regardless).
I say that I’m doing fine, but of course this year’s Campout wasn’t without its personal frustrations either, as it always is. I might be doing well in my life, but there are always certain things missing, and I can still feel needy or lonely, even (or especially) in an environment like Campout. Luckily, my playlist also featured a few selections that, while not about the pains of rejection or heartbreak, were also not entirely uncomplicated in their take on love. Cut Glass’s ‘Alive With Love’ is one such favourite that, if you just look at the title and don’t listen too carefully to the words, seems to be about the joys of being passionately in love. The orchestration is the definition of upbeat. But once you actually listen to the narrator you realise their love is completely unrequited, the object of their affection barely knows they exist and their desperate infatuation remains unspoken. Now, playing this record to a crowd of eight hundred people would be a rather OTT means of telling someone you have a crush on them, yet still I might have entertained the idea. In the event, when Sam told me I only had 20 minutes left to go, I had to make some ruthless decisions, and this particularly melodramatic selection got cut.
Another one, which is less literal but nonetheless expresses an abstract kind of longing — alongside some frankly batshit lyrics in the verses that I’ve yet to decipher — is Kissing The Pink’s ‘Certain Things Are Likely’. I first heard this tune’s compelling bassline riff several years ago in an extremely brief strip club scene from the 1988 giallo film Too Beautiful To Die, and once I’d found out what it was and bought the 12”, I would play it out whenever I had a long set and could reach a moment with the right blend of chug, bombast and ecstasy. The final hour of an 8-hour b2b with Gwenan in the garden room of the old Griessmühle stands out. I think I also played it at the old Hot Mass in July 2022, the occasion on which I first met the Honcho crew and learnt about Campout. And the refrain — “Certain things are likely/certain things are to blame/certain things are likely/they hypnotise me/like falling in love” — felt like it summed up how I’d been feeling. For those reasons and references, it was high on my list of tunes to play at Hemlock, but again, somehow, with time running out, it slipped through the cracks.
Marco Passarani feat. Erlend Øye - ‘Criticize’ [Peacefrog, 2005]
(Note: mistagged on bandcamp as ‘Red Panda Sunrise’)
I only heard this version of Alexander O’Neal’s 1987 hit ‘Criticize’ very recently, when digging through Marco Passarani’s extensive back catalogue. I had no idea he’d collaborated with Erlend Øye (who popped up in my last newsletter about formative mix CDs), much less on a cover of a soul classic. O’Neal co-wrote the original with Jellybean Johnson (not to be confused with John ‘Jellybean’ Benitez) of funk band The Time and, while the lyrics were intended to be a man addressing a woman, I think they can easily be read through a queer lens:
Can't you find something else to talk about?
Is this song the only one you sing?
Makes you look better when you put things down?
Value your opinion!Don't criticize my friends
Criticize my ideas
Don't criticize my lifestyle
I'm fed up 'cause all you want to do is criticize.Now can't we talk this over?
Cause your conversation ain't right.
We can make our love stronger
You don't have to think twice.[Refrain]
These words being sung by fey-as-fuck Erlend against a thwomping Passarani electro backing track only amplifies the gayness, turning it into the gentlest of rallying cries for all us fairies simply trying to live our lives in peace. In the final section Passarani lets the acid lines spiral into disharmony, echoing the frustration of the lyrics. That’s what had led me to put ‘Criticize’ at the bottom of my playlist, where the candidates for last song always go. But in those compressed final moments of the set I was still playing at a fair pace, and this is one of those songs that suffers from being sped up too much. The sentiment in ‘Criticize’ felt very real for the occasion and could have resonated very literally with many of the dancers, but it just didn’t feel like the one.
In the end, I decided to go out on a more camp, allusive and ultimately subversive note. I chased a brief juggle of Naeem’s loop track ‘Don’t Add Fuel To The Fire’ with a record that I like to think has, over the years, become a signature: the techno mix of Pete Shelley’s ‘Homosapien’. And it just so happens that the lyrics to Shelley’s original must be the most complete and accurate portrait in song that I can think of for this year’s Campout experience in all its confounding complexity: meteors and stars; the world as a theatre stage; the foolishness of a script; uncertain futures and endings that might be beginnings; love and strength in a world that’s so wrong; and the realisation that, underneath it all, we’re all, every one of us, just critters.
I'm the shy boy
You're the coy boy
And you know we're
Homosapien tooI'm the cruiser
You're the loser
Me and you sir
Homosapien tooHomosuperior
In my interior
But from the skin out
I'm homosapien too
And you're homosapien too
And I'm homosapien like you
And we're homosapien tooAnd I think of your eyes in the dark and I see the stars
And I look to the light and I might wonder right where you are
All the gods in the sky way up high see the world spinning round
But the sun and the moon and the stars are so far from the ground[Refrain]
And the worlds built of age are a stage where we act out our lives
And the words in the script seem to fit 'cept we have some surprise
I just want this to last or my future is past and all gone
And if this is the case then I'll lose in life's race from now on[Refrain]
And I just hope and pray that the day of our love is at hand
You and I, me and you, we will be one from two, understand?
And the world is so wrong that I hope that we'll be strong enough
For we are on our own and the only thing known is our loveI don't wanna classify you like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know that you're homosapien too